


Perseverance

by Silverlace_Vine



Series: Perspective [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Polyamory, Possessive Behavior, Protective Jarvis, Skinny!Steve, Steve goes shopping, Threesome, blocked memories, obligatory shawarma reference, sunshine and unicorns and Kenny G
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2017-12-25 03:41:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverlace_Vine/pseuds/Silverlace_Vine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony, Steve, and Bruce return home to wrestle with hardship, regret, and each other.</p><p>Part IV of the Perspective-verse.</p><p>Tags updated as they occur to me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

 

"This is impossible."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is.   These numbers don't make sense, Tony, none of it does."  Bruce rakes his fingers through his hair, and it flops back into its usual ruffled anarchy.  "Biologically, biochemically... we might as well be looking at goddamned _magic._ "

"One, magic is just sufficiently advanced technology, and two, magic is real, so quit with the downer talk and let's figure this out."

They descend into yet another retread of the same conversation they've been having periodically for the past two months, and by now, Steve has learned to just tune it out.  He'd love to just retreat completely, find something else to do with his time and get away from the nagging guilt that reminds him that he and his weakness are at the root of these arguments, but he needs to be around to answer questions when they come up, to be present for tests and monitoring.  The little chair in front of his drafting table has developed a respectable groove where his bony rear end has been occupying it, and despite all their efforts, he's not any closer to being Captain America again.

It's probably more frustrating for the resident geniuses than for himself, Steve knows; Tony doesn't like to be so thoroughly confounded and Bruce, desperate to undo the damage the Mandarin's done, is without an avenue to soothe his guilt for ending the man's life.   They struggle with this, not just for his sake, and not just for their own, but to get back that bare fistful of happiness that they'd finally managed to grasp, only to have it slip through their fingers; defiance at both its stubborn best and its dismal worst.

Steve himself handles it the same way he handled most of his pre-Serum disappointments: quietly, and with only as much complaining as can be wedged snugly between snarky comments.   Instead, he focuses on his artwork, most of which consists of portraits of the Invaders and Peggy, and places he remembers from the old neighborhood, and street signs and shop windows that he remembers a little less clearly every day.  Nothing, even the possibility that he might never be Captain America again, doesn't frighten him as much as the idea that he might forget what they looked like, and without the serum to crystallize his memory, the fog of passing time begins to cloud over their faces, muffle the sound of their voices.  The first time that thought crosses his mind, his blood runs so cold, it feels like he's falling.

The argument continues, then fades into discussion, and comparing more numbers, more data, more molecular diagrams and blocky bar graphs that make no more sense to Bruce and Tony than they do to Steve.

Long past what ought to be dinner, they finally call it quits for the day.  Tony retires a bit for a shower and a bite to eat before he catches up with Pepper to go over business, and Steve uploads today's piece to his gallery and replies to his messages before he goes to bed, and Bruce assures them both he'll just do a few last reviews of their progress before he turns in, which might as well be code for 'I'll see you in the morning'.   They share brief, apologetic glances that grow dimmer and more awkward as the answers elude them, and sometimes they don't talk at all, because all three of them are too afraid of one of the others finally saying, " _Maybe it's time we gave up_."  

The couch and the popcorn bowls remain just as they were, _The Thief of Bagdad_ cued up on their playlist, forgotten.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the lateness of this fic, and for the shortness of the introduction. This may have been one of the worst years of my life and I have been having a very hard time finding the energy to write, but today I felt utterly determined to get something out there, in the hopes that even a small spark can light a proper flame.
> 
> Thank you most heartily to everyone who emailed and commented, and I'm so sorry I haven't been keeping up with my inbox. I'll try to do better. Thank you so much, for all your patience and kindness and understanding.
> 
> Special thanks to the_shepard_ashke, Christine, and kyburg, for the title.


	2. Chapter 2

 

"Okay. So we've ruled out genetic modification, steroids, and pixie dust," Tony says.  He stretches, yawns, reaches for his coffee cup and scowls at it when he realizes it's empty again.   "What else have we got?"

"Not much."   Bruce flips through a handful of holographs, and adjusts the comparison models of pre-Serum and post-Serum Steve.   They're hard to look at, mainly because Captain America is unreal in his statuesque perfection, and Steve Rogers has a recipe book's worth of annotations detailing his physical ailments.

They're fortunate, in that most of the worst of those problems have been fixed with the advent of modern medicine and better nutrition; at the very least, Steve hasn't been bedridden with the flu or having asthma attacks or God knows whatever else.  Underweight, still, and just this shy of anemic, but three nutritionally sound meals a day and a conspiciously  increased presence of apple pie in the house will, Tony hopes, change that for the better.

It doesn't make looking at the difference any less frustrating.   It isn't like looking at a stripped car or a pile of organized materials.  The human body isn't a machine, it can't be programmed or re-configured like one of his robots, there's no code to compile or bugs to fix.  This is Bruce's arena, and Tony's not used to being second fiddle in a laboratory.

"You've worked on this before, right? Can we use your notes from that?"

"Yeah, but I didn't know it at the time, and in case you've forgotten, it didn't work out so well. Most of what I learned then wouldn't have applied here even if I'd known what it was, anyway."  Bruce's fingertips knead his temples, chasing off the second headache of the afternoon.  "As to my old notes...  I don't think so, even if we had them.  They were missing the same crucial elements we're missing now. The samples we took from the Valley were contaminated, probably because of the Mandarin's rings."

"What about the tissue samples from Steve? Are we finished testing those yet?"

"Useless."   Bruce flips through a few displays and presents some molecular diagrams that Tony can't identify.    "Blood, hair, skin, saliva, every fluid I could squeeze out of him, all completely serum-free.  And before you ask, I checked myself for useable samples because we'd been together before we left for China, and no, there weren't any."

"I wasn't going to ask that!  But if it had occurred to me, I totally would have."   Tony looks back at the displays, and filters through his own copy of the notes.  "All right. So, what's our next step?"

"There isn't one."

"This again?" He frowns and slides off the table he's sitting on.  "I thought we agreed, no downer talk."

"This isn't 'downer talk', Tony, I really think we've hit the wall."   Bruce reaches for a pen, fusses with it between his fingers, eyes downcast.   "What does all this look like to you?"

Tony looks around the room, at the scattered displays on screens and floating in mid-air, at the copies and copies of notes and coffee-cup rings and sandwich crumbs, as he breathes in the smell of aged dark roast carried on the recirculated air.   It doesn't quite look like a tornado hit it, but it might as well be a portrait of stalled progress.   He sighs, stretches.  "All right, so we've hit the wall. It happens!  Maybe we could take a few days, recharge, come back at it when we're fresh.   You ever been to Mongolia?"

"That's not what I mean."  The doctor slumps in his chair, more tired than usual; even his voice sounds like it's dragging its feet.  "We can't explain some of this stuff because it defies explanation.  The further we get into this, the less sense it makes;  maybe Erskine stumbled across Asgardian technology the way SHIELD stumbled across the Tesseract, or maybe he made it from some extinct Brazilian wildlife or his own blood cells or something, but whatever we're missing here, we've exhausted all our means of finding it. I have no idea what we're supposed to do next."

Tony reaches for Bruce's shoulders, kneading into the muscle and finding enough knots to earn a merit badge.   "Well, we know a lot of people. I'm not wild about Fury, but SHIELD's got resources. Clint and Natasha probably have plenty of weirdo scientists in their creepy spy-on-spy  Rolodex, we could get a second opi--"

"No."  Bruce doesn't turn around or move to look at him, but Tony can feel the muscle under his fingertips bunch and tighten, hear his breath start to pace itself to keep himself in check.   "This is _our_ problem, _we'll_ handle it."

"I don't mean we should try to pass it off to someone else, I mean--"

"I know what you mean. And I'm still saying no."   He reaches for Tony's hand and finds it, clasping it tightly, the steady gentleness traded briefly for conviction, seeking solidarity more than affection.  "I know there are people out there who've been trying to recreate the Serum, but they're not doing it because they're invested in Steve Rogers' continued well-being, they're doing it for money and power.  Before, it was safe to let it go because it didn't matter, no one could do it, but now it absolutely has to be done... and you and I are the only people who can be trusted with it.  I don't know what to do next, and I don't know where else to go for answers, but it absolutely can't be anyone who doesn't live in this Tower."

Tony watches the way Bruce's fingers curl around the back of his hand, the coolness of his clammy skin, the faint tremor in his grip.   There's more to it than just the fear of other scientists' attempts to crack Erskine's formula, ones that Tony himself knows too well: it's their problem, because it's their fault.

Intellectually, he knows that isn't true. The Mandarin holds the blame for everything that happened in the Valley, end of story.  But in the moment, in combat, no one had been there to protect Steve when he needed it most; the two people closest to him in the world had been there with him, but they couldn't stop what was happening until the deed had been done.    Those little stains of Tony's guilt, unreasonable and unfair though it is, are met and mirrored in Bruce's tired, forlorn eyes.

"Don't worry about that now."  He squeezes Bruce's hand;  had anyone else walked into the room it might have looked like they were about to arm-wrestle, but it's a strengthening, bolstering gesture for both of them.   "When this is all over, it won't matter who has the Serum because we'll have Captain America back, and if they abuse what they know, we're in this together and we'll be there to put a stop to it. Right?"

"Right."  Bruce nods,  takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly.  "The three of us."

"Damn straight, Big Science."  Tony claps Bruce on the back before he bends down and drops a kiss on the back of his neck,  and then he's all grins and manic energy again.    "

C'mon, it's still early; let's see if we can fish Steve out of the gym and hit that little Shawarma joint again, maybe the taste of victory can help."  


\--

  
The one upside to all this, in Tony's opinion, is that Steve no longer stretches out his clothes.  Losing that pale strip of Steve's skin under a slightly-too-short t-shirt hem is regrettable to the point of tragedy, yes, but it's an acceptable trade for not having the front of his Whitesnake shirt hang limply off of Tony's chest like someone let the air out of the moobs he doesn't have.  That, and you can really only watch Steve's face upon being told what "moobs" are once, so the novelty of it wears off pretty quick.

Instead, they hang like drapes from Steve's narrow, bony shoulders; it's cute, in its way, until he happily agrees to go grab a quick dinner out with Tony and Bruce.   Lounging around at home, he's happy to go around in his elastic-waisted track pants with the legs bunched up at his feet, but today, his shirt is tucked into a pair of grey slacks, held on with a belt cinched tight enough to leave a measure of it flapping loose between the loops.

Tony gives this a once-over before plainly vetoing it with his eyes.  "Did we not go over this part already? I told you to just borrow something of mine.  Your cuffs are rolled up so high it looks like you're smuggling soup cans."

"Ah... Tony?"

"Bruce, are you seeing this?"  Tony circles a rapidly-becoming-exasperated Steve like an obnoxious vulture intending the scavenge the remains of the terminally unfashionable. "It's like he's the love child of M.C. Hammer and Pastey Smurf."

"Who?"

Bruce rubs his face. "Ignore him, Steve; eventually we'll take you on a historical tour of animation and it'll all become clear.  For now?  Tony, stop being a tool, those _are_ your slacks."

"...You're joking."

Steve nods.   Without the Serum turning 'good' into 'great', he's noticed he's a little more prone to bitter thoughts and frustration, but moments like this, when his smallness, his weakness, his lost friends and lost time and misplaced everything, hit him harder when they did when he had all the confidence and self-assurance any man could reasonably ask for.   

With only a half a second of time to think about it, Tony brightens like the Arc Reactor's just got a new core. "Finally, a problem I can solve! Change of plans, we're taking you shopping, and we're not going to linger on how definitively gay that sounded just now."  He digs his phone out of his pocket and begins tapping away at it.  "I wonder if Osh Kosh B'Gosh makes a 'Just Like Granddad' line..."

Bruce has the good grace to look apologetic when Steve shoots him a dirty look for snickering.

"Tony, give it a rest.   That's not even necessary.  I know it doesn't look like much, but it's really not--"

"Denied, Captain.  We've been burning our collective candle at both ends for months now. We will crack the Serum and get you back in fighting shape, but we're talking about doing something that the rest of the world has been trying and failing to do for over a century; it was never going to happen overnight.   Sometimes reality just sucks like that, and I'm sorry, but we can _do something_ about this."

"It's not a problem, it's only clothes," Steve protests. It sounds childish in his ears, rejecting someone else's attention just to prove he doesn't need it, but right now all he's got to cling to is his pride.  "I probably should have thought of it before now; I have my own money and plenty of time, it's my own fault for not taking care of this sooner.  You really don't have to, Tony."

Tony opens his mouth to argue, but Bruce interrupts. He lifts a hand, gently rests it on Steve's back, and tries not to be too stricken by how much more space it takes up, how clearly he can feel the ridge of his spine, the angle of his shoulderblades.  "...We all relate differently to our second skins. I don't know how you feel about about being in this body or that one, but right now, that body is lost to you. It's not going to do you any favors to constantly remind yourself of it."  He tosses a wry grin in Tony's direction, and lets his the hand on Steve's back drift up to his shoulder.  "But I'm pretty sure he's just excited about it because he hasn't done anything to spoil you in a while."

He'll never admit it, because he already feels slightly guilty for having even a sliver of doubt, but at least some part of Steve had assumed his corner of that relationship was over, or at least on hiatus until he became Captain America again.   He knows Bruce can pick the scents of those emotions out of the air, and the little sour note of shame that comes with them, and so Steve is briefly grateful that he's too short to meet either of their eyes without looking up.  "...Is that right?"

"Do you see me arguing? Look at all this arguing I'm not doing!" Tony gestures to the whole of himself.  "And since I'm being good and not arguing, neither are you. JARVIS!"

"Sir?"

"Where's Agent Romanoff?"

"In her quarters, sir."

"Tell her to meet us downstairs in five minutes, we need her to help dress Steve."  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter. orz. My sincerest apologies.
> 
> Also, _holy frijoles_ you guys. The comments, the kudos, it's like y'all just had them waiting for me in a bucket on top of a half-open door. I know I suck at replying to them because I feel so stupid because all I have is just "thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, omg you make me feel so special" and it is SO TRUE every time, but I don't want anyone to feel like they're getting a form letter and so often I just can't work up the nerve at all...
> 
> The point is, you guys are amazing. I was so certain that after a year of total silence this fic would just be consigned to the forgotten darkness of the interwebs, assumed abandoned. But now I have been completely blown away by how wrong I was, so here we are. Thank you, all of you, so much, even if I don't get to reply to your comment rest assured I treasure each and every one because they're wonderful. 
> 
> silverlace_is_totally_not_worthy.gif


	3. Chapter 3

  
"Do you mind telling me why you need my help with this? You end up on best-dressed lists all the time, what's stopping you from doing the same with Steve?"  

"The fact that Pepper's across the country and I haven't bought my own clothes in twenty years, for one thing.  This is probably the first time I've stepped into an actual clothing store since four or five Christmases ago, and even then it was just to get Rhodey an ugly sweater."

"...You don't dress yourself.  So... you have a robot for that?"  Steve tries not to make it sound as incredulous as it is, but the idea is pretty bizarre.  

"Of course not, that would be ridiculous. JARVIS just buys the stuff for me."

"So, you do have a robot for that."

"JARVIS is not a robot. He's a sophisticated A.I. who also happens to have a sophisticated algorithim for following fashion trends, color theory, things I like and replacing items in my closet when I set them on fire."  

Natasha tries not to roll her eyes too obviously.  "And why don't you just edit that algorithim for Steve's specs?"

"Because I don't have the patience to watch him flop around New York like a trout in clown pants for the six months it would take.   Do you want those cream puffs, or are you just gonna bust my stones all night?"

Normally,  Bruce would probably be tense, going out in public, being in a relatively small space full of people,  but having four superheroes (even if one of them had to be bribed with imported gourmet sweets) within earshot is actually pretty comforting.    He hadn't caught the name, but now they're in a sea of modern fashion, and the pungeant smell of focus-group-selected marketing fragrance is doing a fine job of covering up the usual stink of the general public.  

Steve himself looks out of place, moreso than usual, but not so much because of his appearance. Unlike his pre-serum self,  he isn't sickly, just thin and diminished. His hair is less full, his skin a bit sallow, his posture rigid and self-conscious.   Bruce tries to remind himself that it's not as unfair as it feels; this is, for better or worse, the body Steve was born into, and most people don't have a body that reflects their inner selves any more than a cover reflects what's in a book.    

"How are you holding up?"

Steve, having been only half-listening to Tony and Natasha good-naturedly picking on each other, startles a little.  "I'm all right," he says, and clearly doesn't believe it any more than Bruce does.  "Just a little awkward."

"Tell me about it."  Bruce laughs a little, in the way most people do when they're uncomfortable.   "Thanks for humoring Tony on this, by the way."

"Don't mention it."  He smiles, just slightly, and nods over to where said billionaire is gawking at a wall of T-shirts and insisting that Natasha bring one with the words SASSY BIRD across the chest home to Clint.   "He hasn't had a lot of opportunities to enjoy himself lately,  I'm happy to see him with a real smile on his face."

"I think he forgets we can tell the difference, sometimes."   Bruce thumbs through a small display of colorful silk blouses, distantly reminded of Bangladesh and letting the memory soothe the claustrophobic nervousness scratching at the back of his thoughts.   "He's still getting accustomed to anybody paying that kind of attention to him."

"Has he been okay in the lab?"

"It's his natural habitat."

"You know what I mean."

"He won't talk about it."  He shrugs.  "He will when he's ready, I'm sure, but I'm not going to push it."

Steve nods, frowning slightly but unable to argue the point.  "What about you, then? How've you been in the lab?"

"You know how everybody's got their one hero that they'd love to have been able to meet when they were alive, their the one Renaissance painter or 16th century writer?  Right now, I'm pretty sure Abraham Erskine is mine."   He takes a few steps closer and lowers his voice, as a measure of closeness as much as to have as close to a private conversation as possible.   "I don't want you to get discouraged, but I don't want you to feel like we're leaving you dangling, either.  Tony and I are going to have to start looking for new leads; we've tapped all the ones we have."

Steve frowns into the rack of hoodies, but there's no bite to it, no anger, not even any surprise, just a resigned disappointment.  He nods.  "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting that.   That's not to say I don't have faith in you or anything," he hurries to explain,  attention snapping back up to Bruce's face,  "but so many years of research and testing went into making it the first time.   Still. I'd guess I'd hoped to be an Avenger again by now; didn't you say the formula's been re-created before?"

"I didn't know about Vita-Rays then," Bruce murmurs.  "There have been other formulas, but none of them could have possibly been the right one.   Knowing what I do now, I'm almost certain my version was the closest because it was the only one specifically designed to be activated by radiation.  I'd use that, but I couldn't possibly do it from memory and my notes are all under lock and key God-knows-where within the government, and... ah, General Ross, I..."   He trails off, shrinking a little into his shirt and suddenly finding a display of witty slogan T-shirts extremely fascinating.  Somehow, even when he's ninety pounds of skin and bones, it's painful to look like a coward in front of Captain America.

"No, I wouldn't ask you to get anywhere near the army, and if you tried anyway, I'd stop you."  Steve's voice is firm when he says it, and he reaches to clasp Bruce's wrist gently, meeting his eyes with unabashed conviction.  

"Steve, you--"

"Listen, the only reason I haven't knocked that bastard into the middle of next week already is because I'm still legally dead; the official story is that I'm some other meathook using the name and the uniform as an homage, and for SHIELD's sake I can't risk blowing that cover. As long as Ross leaves you alone, I'm okay to let him be, but that's the only slack I'm willing to cut him.  I'd rather die of tuberculosis tomorrow knowing that you're safe," he states, "than risk your life to be Captain America for another hundred years ."

Bruce redirects his attention, both to the smaller man in front of him and the blue eyes he has to angle his gaze downward to look into, and he can feel the warm sting of redness spreading across his cheeks.    He skirts a quick glance around the storefront; the other patrons  predictably absorbed in their own shopping, the clerks at the counter gossipping about their manager, Tony and Natasha trying to find a totally cute hat to go with Clint's new shirt, and the street outside blocked by an endless stream of strangers.    
Satisfied that there won't be anybody available to make it their business, he leans down, rests his free hand on the side of Steve's neck, and steals a kiss. It's soft, and brief, but the little flash-scents of first surprise,  then excitement would have made it worth it all on their own.

Steve turns the right and proper JARVIS-defined salmon pink, flushed and busying his hands with the drawstring on the hood of a fleece jacket.  "They don't think that kind of thing is inappropriate in this day and age?" he mutters.   The acrid tang of embarrassment wafts around him.

"Public displays of affection aren't frowned upon like they used to be, no."   The doctor looks away, a little burnt by the question and the unfamiliar scent.  "Sorry. I didn't think you'd mind."

"No, it's-- I'm not used to it, that's all, it's harder to just... it's harder not to worry about it than it was before; if people are looking, what they must think. "   He closes his eyes, takes a breath, forces himself to calm down.  "I'm sorry, Bruce. You're right; a few months ago, it wouldn't have occurred to me that it was anybody else's business in the first place.  I'm not ashamed of you, or me, or us."   That, at least, comes with a welcome breath of stubborn, steadfast, Steve Rogers resolve that chases the other smell away.    

"It's okay.  I w--"

Natasha's voice breaks into their conversation as she holds up a shirt and a pair of jeans.  "Steve! Come and try these on."

\--

  
"Captain? Do you mind if I venture an opinion?"

"Is it 'Steve, you look like a keilbasa that gave up'?"   He's never felt quite so awkward in his life, including that time his mother had to use him as a dressmaker's dummy to fit a skirt.

Expert in subterfuge or not, Natasha's having a bit of a difficult time keeping her smile in check. "No, nothing like that."

"Fire away, then."

"I'm starting to think you survived that crash because Time wanted to preserve you until the advent of skinny jeans."

"Is that really what these are called?" Steve hesitantly emerges from the dressing stall.

Bruce smiles warmly.  Natasha is smug.

Tony's eyes trace a straight line from the loose hood of Steve's new vest to the white toes of the cobalt blue Chuck Taylors on his feet.   The denim on his legs looks pratically painted on except for the delicate little creases at his knees and ankles, the slim fabric of his navy and white baseball shirt clings neatly to his frame.  "I don't know why I didn't see it before," he says.  "Looking at it now, it seems so obvious.  Steve, you have your phone?"

"Of course."

"Do you keep music on it?"

"Sure, lots."

"What's the name of the last artist you listened to?"

"They're not very popular yet, but they're called Cranberry Driveway. One of the people I watch on deviantArt painted an album cover for them. Why? Do you know them?"

"Never heard of them."  Tony looks over at Natasha, his expression neatly couched between 'impressed' and 'fuck my life, Captain America is a hipster'.  "Two boxes of cream puffs and that Jamaican coffee Clint likes."

She smiles.  "You're welcome.  And you're treating me for dinner."

"Deal."  
  
\--

The weather's nice and being on foot means delaying the inevitable return to the oppressive frustrations of the lab, and so there's a silent consensus on the matter of walking the rest of the way to dinner.

Steve, preoccupied with other thoughts and accustomed to being overlooked, is completely oblivious to the fact that his thin, pale charm is much more appealing now than it once was.  He nods and smiles politely to answer the shy smiles and hesitantly flirtatious hellos he notices are aimed in his direction, and steps aside so as not to block the ones he mistakenly assumes are meant for one of the others.

It's not until  the group passes a  young lady in square glasses and a sweater vest that he gets it, because she introduces herself by way of whistling for his attention and then stuffing a folded-up piece of paper into the back pocket of his jeans.

Once she's sauntered away, making the universal hand-sign for 'call me' as she goes, he just stares blankly until it finally dawns on him.   "...She was making a pass at me," he observes.

"No, the first four were making passes at you. That one was going for a sack," explains Natasha,  "And I'm pretty sure she was thinking about handcuffing you."

"How can you t-- you know something? I don't need the answer to that, I'm just going to trust your judgment. Nevermind."  Steve watches the girl turn the corner, and lightly pitches the folded square of looseleaf into the trash can on the corner without even opening it.

Natasha watches the paper bounce once and disappear, brows arched lightly in mild surprise.  "You're throwing it out? I would've thought you're the type that would keep it for posterity, even if you didn't like her."  

"It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture, I'm flattered, really...  it's just that if she'd given me a chance to get a word in edgewise, I would have told her I'm spoken for."  Not cold, not offended, just very matter-of-fact; he might as well have informed everyone that the sky is blue and water is wet.   "But she's obviously pretty confident in herself, and she's cute, so if she's lonely, I'm sure it won't last long."

"You know you could, if you wanted."  Tony's pace doesn't change, but there's a subtle shift in his balance, and his fingers brush against the rims of the sunglasses hanging on his shirt collar; it's a fidgeting, nervous movement that Natasha recognizes as a halted pacifying gesture.   "Call her, I mean."

Steve frowns, the sourness of the idea of what he would call infidelity leaving a bad taste in his mouth.  "That's a little inappropriate, don't you think?"

"Of course not; I know the hero thing is a little on the suspended side, but it's still a free country, Cap."   He smiles, and claps Steve on the shoulder.   "Really, I'm impressed!  Don't misunderstand, I have never had any problems with picking up girls I've never met, but the closest I've ever been to having some a woman's number physically shoved down my pants was the time I dropped Pepper's phone in the laundry."

Steve and Bruce meet each other halfway when they share a perplexed look; the doctor refocuses on Tony, and tries to choose his words carefully until he reminds himself that Natasha has probably deduced more about their relationship on her own than she would have if he'd just sat down and explained it directly.   "It really wouldn't bother you if Steve hooked up with someone he met on the street?"

"I'm not really into depriving other people of things they want; if that's what he wants to do-- or if it's what you want to do, for that matter-- then I'm a hundred percent in favor of it; you can even use my car."   He smiles, puts on his sunglasses, and starts walking again, headed for the shawarma joint.  "C'mon, I'm starving, and I still owe Natasha that coffee for Clint."

Tony doesn't wait for a response, leaving the others to follow in discomfited silence. Natasha is the only one who notices that he's walking a little faster than he was before, and he's already forcing himself not to look back.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, apologies for the short chapter. orz I'm hoping the pace will pick up soon.


	4. Chapter 4

Coming back to the Tower carries a certain drudgery with it, a sort of back-to-the-grindstone weight in the air that drags Tony and Bruce back down to the lab like they mean to drown in it.   The cheer that had come over their outing wilts like a flower, and the scientists return to the lab as empty-handed as they'd emerged.  Tony tosses a hasty goodnight over his shoulder without addressing anyone in particular, Bruce says nothing at all save a wordless, apologetic meeting of  Steve's eyes, and so the spy and the captain are left to watch them disappear down the stairs.

"I'm going to put these away," Natasha says, brandishing her cream puffs and Clint's new present, "and then probably turn in for the night, so sleep well, Steve, when you do."

"Thanks.  Goodnight, Natasha."

"... Steve, wait."   Her voice, gentle but firm, stops him as he turns to make his way to his own quarters; he waits.   For the first time since they've met, Natasha hesitates to talk to him, long enough that he has to prompt her to speak.   Finally, she settles on, "I like to think we've become friends. On the one hand,  I don't want to say anything to upset you,  but on the other, I don't want to manipulate you into anything. "

It's not vulnerability that colors Natasha's words, or even guilt, it's just a simple honesty, one that she'd prefer to be genuine enough to state that preference outright.  Steve nods in full acceptance, knowing full well that she's capable of talking him into almost anything, if she set her mind to it. "It's okay, I'm listening."

She doesn't hesitate, but Natasha takes a breath to organize her thoughts before she speaks. "I don't know what Tony was thinking earlier, when he said... what he said."  She elects not to repeat it, although she probably could.  "I don't have enough context for your relationship to understand exactly why he said it, and as much as I'd like to know, I'm not going to pry into your business.  But knowing what I do about you personally, I think it was cruel of him, and I hope you and Bruce kick his ass into next week."

His heart sinks a bit in his chest, the sting of those words still red and raw in his thoughts; still, he can't suppress a smile at the sentiment.  "I don't know, either.   He's pulled away a lot since we got him back from the Valley, and lately, he's had a lot on his shoulders.  Sometimes he can be a real jerk, but I know he doesn't like to go around hurting people on purpose."

"That doesn't give him free license to hurt people, Steve."

"No, it doesn't, but they're only words, and I know he's not always very good at using them."  He pushes the call button, listens to the rumbles behind the wall.  "So until I know for sure what he meant by it, I'm not going to hold what he said against him.  Enjoy your cream puffs, Natasha; good night."

She watches him step into the elevator, watches the silver doors slide shut;  her view of him disappears behind two panels of smooth, unblemished gloss, and for the first time since they came home from the mission to rescue Tony from the Mandarin, Natasha finds herself noting the loss of Captain America.

 

\--

Steve takes the elevator to his own floor.  He leaves his sneakers in his foyer, next to his motorcycle boots;  at least his feet are still basically the same size, though his arches are higher than they were before.   He crosses his living room to his bedroom, feeling his toes barely sink into the plush, cobat-blue carpet, he reaches up slightly higher than usual to flip the light switch.  He has to pull harder than usual to open the closet door.

It shouldn't feel weird, since Tony used to buy him clothes all the time before he came up with the magnetic-mounted punching bags, but as Steve pushes aside the madras shirts and khaki slacks hanging up, he catches sight of his reflection.

It's hardly the first time he's seen himself since the Serum was taken from him. The mirror is full-length and hangs on the inside of the closet door, and so remains almost impossible to miss, but he's been avoiding looking too closely. Before, Steve couldn't see his arms without turning to the side, because the broad set of his shoulders were wider than the frame.  He had to stoop to check his hair because he was taller than the door.  Now he fits neatly in the confines of the narrow rectangle of silvered glass, as if someone has put him back in the box he belongs in. One of Tony's shirts, a black Led Zeppelin concert tee from 1977, looms like a shadow from where it hangs up behind him.

He lets his eyes rove along the lines of his frame, the bony shoulders, the narrow hips, the jutting collarbones, the knobby joints and ribs; the soft, clinging fabric flatters what he sees, but it can only do so much to soothe the disppointment staring back at him.  "It was a good run while it lasted, soldier, but without the serum, you're gonna be a ninety-pound bag of bones all your life. Maybe you should've kept that saucy dame's number after all."

The significance of that thought doesn't hit him until after the words leave his mouth,  and he finishes putting his clothes away.   He puts his laundry in the basket and changes into a pair of his old track pants, more out of stubbornness than any real desire to wear them, and tugs a clean tank top over his head.  It hangs loose from his shoulders.

The burns from Tony's words still haven't faded.  He may not be ready to openly call himself "demisexual" yet, if he ever will, but even if he isn't in a position to own that label, to have Tony-- who claimed to love him, who _struggled_ with loving him, whose love is posessive and protective and seeks to be trusted and to honor that trust above all else-- practically throw Steve to a stranger on the sidewalk cut him so finely, the bewilderment dulled the pain enough to mask the wound itself. ­

Dinner had continued first in awkward silence, then in dull, technical science talk as Tony and Bruce discussed more theories, which lapsed quickly into Tony discussing new theories and Bruce and Steve trying not to kill the mood by enganging Natasha in small talk.  The longer they went ignoring it, the less important it seemed to be, until it brought Steve back here, to the privacy of his own bedroom, staring at his reflection and wondering what had gone wrong.

Unfortunately, it seems obvious that his reflection _is_ what went wrong.  

He sits on the edge of his bed, sinks into it in a way that leaves him less swallowed-up by the thick comforter than before even if it leaves his bony feet dangling off the side.  On the opposite wall, the faces of the Invaders greet him from within their picture frame.

"I'm not Captain America anymore," he tells them softly, his voice edged in guilt.  "I feel like there's an answer here that I can't understand.  A great man would understand it, but I'm just... good.  And good isn't good enough."   

The picture of Howard smiles his artful smile, colorless and silent, and Steve finds he can't meet those eyes, even the photocopy's lifelessly flat ones.  "...He reminds me a little of you, you know.  He likes the best of things, won't tolerate less than the best from himself. That's probably why he's okay with letting me go.  The serum makes greatness and I just can't measure up without it, not on a level with him and Bruce."

The picture doesn't answer, but Steve imagines a smarmy response, dripping with sarcasm so unctuous it might stain the wall;  he glowers.  "Of course not, Tony isn't shallow.  He apologized for saying everything special about me came out of a bottle, that was just a bad first impression that I made, because I couldn't understand why he acted the way he did.  Which... is exactly what I'm doing now, isn't it?"

Next to his bed, under the window, is the bookshelf that houses those of Tony's little anonymous gifts that weren't articles of clothing. It had been there when Steve moved in, a small pile of books neatly shelved on it already, and Tony had apparently put it there specifically as a place to leave presents without having to embarrass them both by giving the in person.  The books themselves only take up about half the space on it, the rest are filled with little useful things;  tourism guides to New York City with "new" landmarks highlighted, pocket train and bus schedules, a damascus steel wallet chain (which Steve secretly loves, but considers much too fancy to wear to any occasion where he'd be carrying a wallet), stacked rolls of KT tape.

It hurts to look at them.  'You don't need to do anything special to deserve being here', Bruce had translated, but maybe that wasn't exactly true.  He didn't need to do anything, but maybe he did have to be something special.    This thought crosses his mind just as his eyes pass over a new article on the shelf, one that he's certain wasn't there the last time he looked at it.

It's a small, square, wooden box, about the same shape and size as a good dictionary, which Steve rationalizes is the reason it's blended in with the books all this time, not to mention how little time he's actually spent in here since movie nights and serum testing have started keeping  him on the couch and in the lab, respectively.  

He picks it up, opens it, and finds himself greeted with... markers.

Specifically, a set of very high-end illustration-grade markers, curved and sleeved for a textured, ergonomic grip.  A color guide is printed on the inside of the box lid (58 in all, not including a colorless blender and an india ink pen in the same shape), and removing the lid produces the distinctive odor of ink suspended in alcohol rather than water.  
The lid makes a soft, wooden clack as he closes it again, and Steve sets the box back on his shelf;  his fingers come away with a thin layer of dust, leaving black streaks where they held it. He lingers on this sight only briefly before he reaches for a roll of tape and makes his way down to the gym.  
  
\--  
  
The lab equipment hums with a thousandth round of analyses, projecting more of the same holographs that have been popping up around the room for weeks.   Tony idly spins a 3D double helix with one hand, watching the genes rotate as he searches it for anomalies again, and again, and again, anticipating and finding nothing.

"Let's try the gene therapy simulation again, but this time, let's plug something non-human into it.   Like an ocelot or something, or a cobra.  Maybe it'll give him neat fangs."

"Somehow, I don't think that's going to get us any closer to Erskine's formula. But that--"

"It's not gonna get us any further away from it, either."   He leans back in his chair, watches the information scroll aimlessly.   "We're missing something important here, I just don't know what yet. It's gotta be in this mess somewhere, though, we can't-- Hello.  Excuse me, we're supposed to be working here?"

Tony's chair spins, and he finds himself face to face with Bruce.   Or, rather, face-to-chin with Bruce, because the resident billionaire apparently can't afford eye contact.  The doctor tilts the chair forward, forcing the issue and almost tipping Tony out of it.

"No. We're taking a break.  You've been acting weird since that girl hit on Steve, you've been stinking up the lab with a scent I don't recognize, and **I don't like it**."  The sudden intense anger flashes green in Bruce's eyes, but actually forcing Tony to meet and hold his gaze calms him, softens him to his usual gentle concern when he sees guilt instead of fear in those eyes.  Slowly he lets the chair go, and leans on the worktable.  "And you haven't been able to hold eye contact with anyone.  What needs fixing here, Tony?"

"Nothing, everything's fine, apart from the fact that we haven't solved this Serum thing yet."  Tony rakes his fingers through his hair.  "There are just some things about this 'dominant' business, y'know, great power, great responsibility...  It's easy when it all lines up like I want, but let's face it, I'm not always real graceful about putting other people first."

"Flying into that portal with a nuclear device had a certain _je ne sais quois_ , I thought."

Tony scowls.  "Don't joke about that.  That was getting a job done, not putting someone I loved ahead of what I wanted to do; I wanted to save the world more than I wanted to be with her, and that's why she left me."

"Tony... no one holds that against you, not even Pepper."  Bruce reaches for his hand, but Tony jerks it away.

"Of course not, that would be stupid."  He paces, frustrated, around the lab.  "But that _is_ what happened.  Presented with a choice between dying in space and living with her, I chose to die in space. Just because I was doing it to solve the problem in front of me at the time doesn't change that."

Bruce watches him pace, lets him work off the nervous energy while he stays stable in their little La Grange point.  "Is that what this is about? Guilt?"

"No, it's not about guilt, I'm trying to explain myself here. Look."  Tony stops, collects himself, and tries again, this time making idle gesticulations as he talks.  "The point is, with this whole--" his face twists with distaste for the word, "--Dom thing, my job is to focus on the needs of my submissives and make sure you have everything you need and to take pleasure in the power that gives me and the pleasure it gives you. Right?"

Bruce relaxes a little, seeing Tony settle into something less nervous, more solid. "Right."

"But, the thing is, I'm actually really bad at that.  It works great when what you need is something I want to give you, something that doesn't cost me anything--"

"You built us both penthouse suites in one of the most sophisticated buildings in the country."

"For crying out loud, Bruce! I swear, you build a guy an apartment and you never live it down."  Tony rolls his eyes, and it makes the doctor's lips quirk up in an affectionate smile.  He'd like to be annoyed and petulant about it, but Bruce's amusement does wonders to settle Tony's nerves.  "The point is, the things I do for you and Steve don't cost me anything. Your work station has material value; I spent the time and money to design, build, and install it, yes, but I get a return on that investment by being able to work with you.  Even if you triple the amounts of everything it took to put it together, by my count I'm still making out like a bandit.  And doing things for you that don't pull in those kinds of returns... they frustrate me and I don't like them, because apparently I'm allergic to not being a selfish prick. But I'm trying, I'm learning, I'll get better at them, so don't worry about me, everything's fine. "

"That... is an incredibly sweet thing to say, and we're going to come back to that."  Bruce takes a few steps closer, feeling a little more welcome in his lover's space now that he's calmed down; his hand cautiously finds the fabric of his slim athletic shirt and follows the seam down the line of Tony's waist.   "But, I'm not seeing how that's relevant to this afternoon."

"Telling him he doesn't have to refuse everyone who comes onto him just because we have a thing going, is what I meant.  I love buying him clothes from this century."  Tony rests a hand on Bruce's hip, reciprocating the touch and being grateful for it, it helps to offset the tone in his voice that he's sure must sound whiny and childish.   "It's important that he understands that. And that you understand it, too."

Bruce takes a second to process Tony's words, rolling each one over and over in his head like stones being smoothed by a swift stream.  It takes him long enough that Tony's posture goes wooden, watching him.  

"What? I know that face, what did I do wrong?"

"No, just-- one second, I need to get on the same page with you and I don't even know what book you're reading."  Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose.  "Let's-- okay.  You're saying... there's no expectation of fidelity? This is a... a casual thing, for you?"

"What? Ca-- no, no, it isn't casual, I've been flinging the L-word around _way_ too much for that, why would you even--"

"Because this afternoon, you told a person who literally cannot function sexually without a deep emotional bond that you don't care if he has casual sex with a stranger, and now you're telling me, someone who can't have casual sex _at all_ , the same thing."  Bruce sets his glasses back on his face.   "And because I know-- _we_ know-- you aren't half as bad as you seem to think you are, I know that can't possibly have been what you meant, so ... _what the fuck, Tony_?"

"I don't mean I don't care! Of course I care, I-- I just, I don't want you to think that... that you owe me anything, or you have to deny yourself something you want just because of what we have.  Look."   Tony takes a few awkward steps again, settling into a nervous pace;  the unfamiliar scent is quickly overpowered by fear and his unique, familiar blend of guilt and shame.  "I don't own you.  I don't own you, you are free and independent people and you have every right to do whatever you want to do. Choosing to cede control to me in bed and letting me provide stuff for you doesn't mean you have to limit your choices in life according to what my ego finds acceptable, I don't--"

He finds himself interrupted by a hand on his arm, gentle and familiar, square fingertips lightly gripped just above his elbow and holding there as if it's fragile and precious; Bruce's voice murmurs gently, close to his shoulder, as his other arm hesitantly reaches to draw him into an embrace.  "You're shaking."

It's a few moments before Tony can calm down enough to go still again, and he ventures, quietly, "...I just don't want to be like _him_."

Bruce is grateful for the shoulder his face is buried in right now.  "Him, who?"

"The-- the Mandarin."

"Tony, you're not--"

"Yeah, I am."   Tony's voice sinks, the tension in his shoulders going slack in the familiar, cut-puppetstrings sort of way.  "I am.   I know SHIELD wants me to-- to get counseling, because of the-- you know, 'assault' part-- but I really don't care about that.  It was gross, but it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with manipulating you and Steve."

"So, what about him?"  Bruce prompts him, cautious and quickly approaching worried.  "Why in Hell would you think you have anything in common with someone like that?"

"Because that's why he came after me, because we have... a common interest, namely the..." He scowls, shakes his head. "He's-- he was, a Dom and he called his subs his 'dear ones', but they were literal slaves.  The way he talked about them, Bruce... like they were _things_ , and there were so many he didn't even bother to try calling even a single one of them by name!  I never got to talk to any of them, I never saw him mistreat any of them, and it was obvious he cared about them, just not like they were... people."

Bruce draws back, just enough to nudge Tony's face up away from his shoulder. "Why do you think that has anything to do with us?"

"Because the only difference is in how we look at our roles in this kind of relationship! Looking at him was like being visited by the goddamn ghost of Kinky Future or something."  His eyes skirt away from Bruce's face and rest uncertainly on his collarbone.  "... He had no idea he was dehumanizing them, but he only attacked me because he cared enough to avenge their deaths. I can see myself losing perspective enough to go down that road, Bruce. I don't want to have to make that mistake before I learn from it."

The doctor takes a long, deep breath, lifting his hands so he can slide his fingers up along Tony's jawline.   "Have you ever thought about why you don't like calling me your sub?"

"Because I don't like implying than you're somehow _lesser_ than I am. I know that isn't what it means, it's just short for 'submissive' and I don't have a problem with the full word, but when we first met, I was so excited to work with you because... because it felt like you really were on my level."   He rests his hands over Bruce's wrists, leans carefully into the touch, and lets Bruce talk him through an answer that he's had rolling around in his head since he first explained it all to Steve, that night in his bedroom that feels like a lifetime ago, now.  "After everything we've been through since New York, it sounds wrong."

"Exactly.  Tony, you have your faults, sure, but you've never made me feel like I was inferior to you, even though there's a very big, green, understandable reason for people to treat me like I'm less than human. You've never put Steve on a pedestal or acted like his being Captain America means he should be held to a higher standard than anybody else, even when he holds himself to one."  He leans in, and lightly seals his lips against Tony's in a small, soft kiss.  "There is nothing you can learn from that man's mistakes that you don't instinctively know."

Tony nods, a bit reluctantly.  They stay locked like that, close and warm in the quiet, cluttered mess of the lab, for a long while, with Bruce refusing to let Tony further than arm's reach until the unpleasant scent of self-punishment fades from him, and Tony not wanting to be away at all.   It's not until Bruce is absolutely certain that he steps back and smiles with easy, comfortable affection.

"I think we should take the rest of the night off. I'm going to clean up in here, you need to go find Steve."  Bruce sees his lover's mouth start to open, and without waiting for whatever protests are about to fall out of it, he points toward the elevator.  "If you need to make up for being a selfish prick, then that's where to start: you were so wrapped up in your own worries that you didn't even realize that you'd hurt him in the first place."

"You're not coming with me?"

"No.  I'll... catch up, later."  His expression softens,  Bruce begins sweeping coffee-ringed napkins and scraps of paper and sandwich crumbs into the trash. "You and he have barely spent any real time together since we came home, and losing the Serum has put a real dent in his self-confidence.  If there's ever going to be a time where he needs to see that side of you, it's now."

Tony's mouth curves in a wry half-grin, and he leans his forehead against Bruce's, just briefly, on his way to the elevator door, fingertips lightly brushing through the soft, loose hair at the doctor's temple.  "I'm lucky to have you, Bruce," he says softly.  "And so is Steve."

Bruce chuckles, and as the elevator doors slide open to admit the resident playboy philanthropist, he tosses a quick wink over his shoulder.   A part of him wants to pick on Tony as the doors are closing, but he lets it go, and reorients his focus on the lab.  

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

He gathers up the rest of the trash, and begins re-arranging the holographs scattered around the room, saving progress and backing up files to the private server one program at a time.  "I need you to do something for me."

"Shall I cue the pan-flute tracks again?"

He snickers. "Not this time. Would you place a delivery order at that bakery Steve likes? The one in Queens?"

"Certainly, Doctor.  What would you like?"

"A half-dozen chocolate cupcakes, with red, white, and blue frosting."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, still a bit shorter than normal. 
> 
> Thank you all for your continuing support; this was difficult but I hope this helps get the story moving again. This one was very feels-heavy and I hope it doesn't gush too much. However, I did write this while I was very, very exhausted, and without a beta reader I apologize in advance for any truly awful errors.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Steve's door has been unresponsive for the last ten minutes, and Tony is very, very grateful that he made a point to give each of the Avengers their own floor so that no one has to hear him yowling to be let in like a rained-on tomcat.

"Steve, _please_ answer the door, I'm really sorry about what I said.  You are really way too old to be this good at being a pouty thirteen year old girl, you know that, right?"  His face thuds thuds against the wall, finger lazily poking the bell in the most absently irritating way he can muster.  "I know, it was a shit thing to do, I was speaking from kind of a messed-up place but Bruce straightened me out and I really want to make it up to you.  I didn't bring pie or anything because he says you're not into apology presents but I can go get one if you want.  Just open the door and talk to me."

"Sir?"

"What about flowers? It's not weird to get a guy flowers in the future. I have a suit, I can and will go straight to the Netherlands for tulips if you want.  But not if that would be gaudy or anything--"

"I'm afraid he isn't home."

"--I don't want to _what do you mean he isn't home_?"   Tony's hand drops away from the doorbell and falls slack at his side.

"He left his quarters approximately two hours ago."

"And you couldn't have shared that little nugget of wisdom with me sooner, J?"

"My apologies, I was attending to another task.  Shall I let Agent Barton find it on his own, or shall we skip the middleman and upload the past twenty minutes of the security feed to YouTube now?"

"Just delete them. I think the world has seen enough candid video of me to last the rest of... human civilization."   He sighs and gets properly standing again, lifting his forehead away from where he was about to start smacking it into the wall.  

"Probably. Still, I think this one was more charming than most of your other amateur film appearances."  JARVIS almost sounds amused.  "And in compliance with a TV-PG rating, no less."

"Anybody ever tell you you're a smartass?"

"Only you, sir.  My circuits flutter every time."

Tony closes his eyes, covers his face with his hands, and laughs at the absurdity of it all.  He shakes his head and makes his way back to the elevator. "All right. If he's not here, where'd Steve go?"

"The gymnasium.  I believe he's in the middle of his usual exercise regimen."

"...Yeah? How's he doing?"  Tony knocks the button for the training floor with a knuckle, possibly to make up for not being able to get an answer from Steve's door and just needing a response from something, anything.  

"Considering his current condition? I would say he's doing _admirably_."

 

  
\--

 

The elevator opens onto the gym's entryway, the ding of the arrival bell echoing slightly in amid all the tiles and glass.  At the time he designed the floorplans, Tony's idea of What A Hero Gym Needs had been downright cartoonish, with extravagant notions about high-speed, robotic clay pigeons for Natasha and Clint and a horde of robo-Nazis with sophisticated combat AI for himself and Steve; Pepper had talked him into toning it down when he started talking about building an arena-sized terrarium with its own working water cycle and simulated weather conditions for Thor.

As it is, the entryway is more or less an empty antechamber, furnished only with a little row of cubbyholes for shoes, and a high glass partition dividing it from the main floor.   Tony notes the familar Converse sneakers neatly tucked away in one of them, smiles, and then takes a minute to remove his own cross-trainers to put them in the next space over.

Through the glass, he catches a glimpse of Steve walking across the gym floor; Tony's curiosity doesn't have to try very hard to get the better of him, so he stays where he is to watch.  A doubtful, insistent little voice in the back of his head tells him it's wrong to spy like this, and Tony is pleased with himself for being able to tell that voice to shut its damn mouth because he has every right to admire his subs' endeavors, whatever they are.

Steve's barefoot and his hair's askew, and the fringe of his bangs and the tops of his shoulders are dewy with sweat and adorned with a blue towel. A bottle hangs loose in his tape-wrapped hand, only half-full but frosty all the way to the top as if he'd just drained it very quickly; his free fingertips quickly come up to brush away a thin trickle of water left at the corner of his lower lip.    He pads quietly across the floor over to the punching bags,  sets down the bottle and the towel, and gets to work.

Tony's seen him thrash a bag before.  Usually it's a stunning display that ends with the tape on Steve's knuckles just starting to smoke and the bag torn off its moorings and slumped in a heap against the wall, but he was two heads taller then.   Now, it's smaller, controlled movements, and within a few quick jabs, Tony realizes what he's doing: teaching this new body how to fight like Captain America.   They're careful punches, nothing fancy, but he's focusing on aligning his arms and shoulders and connecting consistently, rather than putting enough force behind it to try to actually move the bag.

Admirable, indeed.

Tony watches this for a long few minutes, and there's a certain sneaky charm to be had in standing behind the partition, watching Steve take these small steps.  Determination tenses the thinly-corded muscle of his arms and ripples along his back, the careful steps and shifts pull the cuffs of his track pants up just far enough to give a glimpse of a heel or a row of tiny, pale toes.  It's not until Steve misses his rhythm and hisses in sudden pain that Tony breaks out of his reverie, and immediately centers on the patch of torn tape and a little smear of blood welling up from a barked knuckle.

"Stay there," he says.

Steve all but jumps out of his skin, and his eyes follow Tony from the entryway, to the supply closet, and back to him, as he digs out a bandage and disinfectant.

"It's just a scratch, you don't have to--"

"I know I don't."

Tony's movements are strictly pragmatic as he peels away the athletic tape and presses a little square of gauze against the little spot of raw skin and blood.  Steve's right, of course, the bleeding has all but stopped by the time he even gets within arm's reach, but there aren't any illusions to be had here.  This is a lot less about sports medicine and a lot more about an excuse for physical contact, but to Steve's comfort, it does wonders for the sting.   They stand in silence while Tony gently pats it clean and sprays a dime-sized and largely unnecessary amount of liquid bandage over the broken skin.

Steve marvels at it with a delighted, well-how-about-that kind of smile. "That's what Band-Aids look like in the future?"

"They still make the regular kind, this is just faster and more sanitary."  Tony half-grins.  "All the times you got nicked up in combat, SHIELD never gave you a Band-Aid?"

"...No," he ventures, his expression flattening into resigned disappointment.  "With the healing factor, I never really needed any kind of treatment.  A scrape like this would normally be gone by now."  He doesn't look sad, or angry, just let down; Tony spends a few awkwardly-silent seconds kicking himself before he elects to try to speak again.

"Steve-- I, um.  I owe you an apology," he starts, and without waiting for a response it all starts tumbling out of his mouth.  "I'm so sorry about what I said before, I didn't mean it like it sounded and--"

"It's okay, Tony. I know.  I misunderstood."   Steve reaches up to pat Tony's shoulder, reassuring.  "I really shouldn't have taken it personally like that, and I'm over it now. I'm sorry."

Tony almost stops to check the room for hidden cameras or a springloaded pie somewhere. "I came here to apologize and make it up to you for accidentally saying I don't give two shits if you screw around with random she-hipsters, how did we arrive at the conclusion that this was _your_ fault, exactly? I screwed up, this was on me, you didn't do anything wrong."

"You can still say you're sorry if you want, I forgive you."

"That-- actually does make me feel better, Cap, but I still don't know what in Hell you're talking about."

Steve laughs, and it's really the most un-burdened expression Tony's seen on him in some time, almost boyish in the way it lifts the weight from every part of him. It reminds him of the first of Steve's smiles he'd ever seen, just after he'd woken up after the nuke.  "I'm saying I know you have trouble talking to people sometimes, because words just aren't your best means of expressing yourself.   And I know that you think faster than your mouth can talk, so sometimes you can't help saying things out of context. The context is there, it's just in your head and your mouth can't get it out in time.  When we first met, I took offense to what you were saying because I wasn't reading between your lines, I hadn't learned how yet.  But I know, now."   His undamaged hand fusses with the seam of his track pants, and this time, a tiny flush of familiar salmon-pink washes across his cheekbones.  "And I know that you say what you really mean with actions; I like that about you.  Leaving aside the clothes-- which are great, by the way-- I found the markers you left me.   They can't have been there more than a couple of weeks, which means you put them in my room a good long while after we came back from the Valley.   I don't think you'd do that if we were... done, you and me."

Tony drops back against the wall next to the bags and massages his temples, as if he means to  stave off an oncoming headache. The words aren't there, because of course they wouldn't be, but to hear Steve say so plainly that he gets it, that he knows, he understands, unwrenches the knot in the pit of his stomach. "I need to get off this emotional bullshit-go-round, I really do," he says, muttering into his palm.  "So, you're okay with me being a self-centered neanderthal who can't talk."

"I'm okay with _you_ , period. You don't have to do anything special."  Steve smiles.   He unwraps the sweat-dampened and friction-frayed tape on his hands, reaches for the roll, and begins wrapping his wrists and knuckles up with a fresh layer.

"Good.  I'm glad."  Tony relaxes, exhales a deep breath and reluctantly lets the matter drop, discarding his own insecurities like filing down a piece of metal to allow all the pieces the chance to slide back into place.   "Going another round, huh?"

"Yup."  Steve sets himself, squares his shoulders, raises his fists, and drives another skilled-but-feeble jab into the bag.  He tries his best to hide it, but he's short of breath again after two more.  "I'm a shrimp again, but I'm not sick like I used to be and I can eat better.  I probably can't get back to Captain America-level abilities without the Serum, but the way I see it, Natasha and Clint do fine on their own, so there's no reason I can't work my way up."  He lays a right cross into the bag in perfect form, but the bag doesn't even budge, offering only a dull _plap_ to acknowledge it was even struck.  "That way, when we crack Erskine's formula, I'll be better than ever and everything goes back to normal, and if it turns out it can't be done, I can still enlist with SHIELD, and maybe you and Bruce and I can give our relationship another go.  Just gotta keep at it."

"Excuse me, _what_?"  Tony doesn't mean to, but when he reaches for Steve to stop him and turn him around, he weighs so little that he almost loses his balance;  Tony's hands go to steady him on reflex, and he remains on his feet.

Steve glowers.  He can feel Tony's hands, one on his shoulder, one lightly gripping his bicep; they take up much more space on his skin than they would have before.  It's a light touch, but there's a weight to it that takes the indignation right out of him. "I mean we can try again, having a relationship with the three of us."

"What do you mean, _try again_?  We barely had a chance to try a _first_ time!"

"I appreciate what you're saying, but I really don't need the sugar coating, I can handle reality."  He'd like to sound exasperated, but there's a little too much disappointment to make it work.   "The Serum didn't just make me stronger, Tony.  It made me _better_ , physically, mentally, maybe even emotionally; Captain America and I might be similar, but these last few months have shown me that we _aren't_ the same person.  You and Bruce didn't invite a stranger into your bed, and... well. I don't think either of you should have to waste time on getting familiar with a downgrade."

He isn't sure what he expects Tony to do. Scold him, maybe, or apologize, or just argue about the finer points of what makes a stranger a stranger, but Steve is firm in his convictions and prepared to defend his position on the matter.   His fists clench, his teeth grit, and he braces for whatever will come next.

What comes next is Tony's hands, the brush of fingertips running up along the lines of his arms and shoulders, over his collarbone, to the sides of his neck.  They frame Steve's jawline and lift his chin, and instead of a fight,  he gets a kiss pressed gently against his lips.

It's not his first, not by a long shot, but it's the only kiss Tony's ever given him in his pre-Serum body, and the lingering warmth of it pulls that familiar pink to his face. "...I was really expecting a stupid argument."

"Maybe tomorrow."  Tony lets his hands link behind Steve's back, pulling him close in a loose embrace.  "Do you remember what I told you, when we first agreed to try a relationship between the three of us?"

Even being this small, Steve finds a way to shrink against Tony's chest, taking a bit of comfort in the warmth and weight of his arms, the day-faded cedar smell of his aftershave.  "You told me.. to be honest about what I want," he answers. 

"And you remember why?"

"... So you can make sure I get it."

"Right."  Tony guides him away from the punching bags and over to the wall.   "So, are you saying that's what you want, Steve? You want to dump us?"   There's no judgment or humor in it; it's just a question.

"No, I don't-- I just--"

"Forget the rest of it for now.  You don't have to explain, just focus on what you want."

Steve closes his eyes and the words just tumble out.  "...I want to be Captain America again. I want to stop feeling like I'm less than I was, I want to stop _being_ less than I was, I want to stop feeling like I'm less than everyone else, I want to feel like I still have a place on this team, I..."    He lowers his voice, because he knows he's admitting to doubting his teammates and his lovers, "...I want to belong in the picture again."

He wants to ask what changed, why he thinks that he's not fit to be with them, but Tony lets it go for now.  The reason doesn't matter anyway. Instead, he leans down again and catches Steve's lips with his own, in a long, lingering kiss, then reaches down, gathers both of Steve's thin, delicate wrists in one hand, and pins them against the wall over his head.   "I think," he says, breaking just long enough to get his breath back, "we should just draw a new one."  

Tony's free hand runs down Steve's back, sliding under his tank top and over the damp, pale skin, over the thin muscle and the hard bank of his shoulderblade; he can feel a tense shiver run through Steve, nearly wincing at feeling his frail, unloveable body touched.  Tony almost withdraws, fearing Steve's discomfort or even pain, but he falls back on the instinct that Bruce has told him to trust;  instead, he bends his head to lay a kiss on Steve's throat, and smiles as he feels that tension giving way under his hands.  

Gradually, Tony chases away that tension from as much of Steve's body as he can reach, one touch, one kiss at a time.  Within a few minutes,  Steve's back and shoulders are pressed against the gym wall, feet apart and forward, all traces of self-consciousness and anxious shivering long gone and replaced with a warm, open readiness.   He skirts a glace up at Steve's pinned wrists, and somehow, the sight of his long, slender fingers relaxed and submissive is the most erotic part of the vision in front of him.

"Good; you're doing _so good_ ,"  Tony breathes his praise against the shell of Steve's ear, finds himself rewarded with a little, longing moan.  "Tell me what you want, Cap."

Steve whimpers at the nickname and drops his forehead against Tony's shoulder; he can feel a fine tremble at the end of his fingers and an ache in his legs from struggling to keep still, to stop the constant, maddening brush of fabric on his cock.   "Touch me?  Please?"

Tony obliges, sliding his hand up along Steve's thigh and then stroking him, slowly, through the soft, loose cloth of his track pants, with the heel of his palm.  Steve's hips buck eagerly against it, and Tony allows it for only a few strokes before he lifts his hand and presses Steve's hips back against the wall, keeping them still.   "Mm, no, none of that."

"Tony, _please_ \--"

"Not yet, Cap. Be patient."

And just like that, Steve is quiet again, perfectly still.  Maybe it's something about obeying orders, maybe it's just that he trusts Tony not to leave him hanging, but whatever it is that makes him fall into silent, obedient patience strikes a chord in the pit of Tony's stomach. He lets Steve's wrists go; they almost immediately fall to his sides, palms flat against the wall.  "Good," Tony praises.  "Don't move, and don't come until I tell you."

Steve nods, and almost yelps as Tony slides his pants down around his thighs, exposing his red, swollen cock to the cold, open air.   It leaves him gasping, but he keeps his palms flat against the wall next to him, even when Tony sinks down on his knees in front of him.

"Y-you're sure about that?"  he asks. HIs eyes are wide, and he doesn't have to elaborate for Tony to know what he means.

"You only heard it then, right?" Tony asks.

Steve nods. "Yeah, but--"

"So watch closely, this time; it's different." he says, and slowly slides his tongue along Steve's length.  

Steve's seen porn before, plenty enough to know that outside of some very specific security tapes, he knows it bores him.  But this isn't like some cheap digital video of a stranger; this is Tony, this is Iron Man, someone he loves and trusts, wrapping his lips around the hard, aching shaft of his cock, surrounding him in a wet heat, each breath exhaled with a soft, pleased sound coming from the base of his throat.

It's not long before Steve is struggling not to thrust into Tony's mouth, fists clenched white-knuckled against the wall;  where there were moans of pleasure are now whimpers of straining control, and when Tony stands and catches him in a slow, soaking kiss, he almost cries out in relief.  

"Very good," Tony gasps.  "Very, _very_ good."   He reaches one hand to his waist to undo his own slacks, letting his own neglected cock out of their confines.   With a few quick adjustments, he pushes Steve back up to standing straight again, heels of his sneakers backed up against the wall.  "You can have your hands back."

"Thank you."

He presses against Steve from shoulders to knees, one hand slipping behind him to push against the small of his back;  with his hands free, Steve reaches around Tony's shoulders, claws his fingers into his hair and holds on.  He gasps again, feeling the saliva-slick hardness of his own cock sliding against Tony's, and before long they're grinding against each other, finding a steady rhythm that pushes them both a little further with every roll of their hips.

It's not long before Steve is clinging to Tony's shirt for dear life, face buried in his shoulder, gasping sharply for breath between sweet, pleading, begging moans,  his thoughts left rendered down to molten pleasure, unable to shape into anything more complex than 'please' and 'more'.

Tony grits his teeth when he feels himself nearing the edge, and brushes his lips one more time against Steve's ear:  " _Come for me_."

It courses through him like something burst, and by the time the last of the tremors have stopped, he's faintly shaking and has missed Tony's climax;  they sink to the floor together, aimlessly exchanging exhausted kisses and touches until they end in a sweaty, trembling heap.

"Feel better?"

" _Much_ better."

Tony gathers Steve up against his chest and closes his eyes.  "This... I like this, this is nice."

"What is?"

"The... afterglow, I guess.  It's a little different, from how it is with Bruce."

Steve chuckles, breathless but amused. "Really?"  

"Usually during this part, I'm helping him through the drop."   He lazily combs his fingers through Steve's wet hair.  "That's not to say I don't enjoy it, but I like this part, too."

"Mm."

"I'm probably high enough on endorphins to say this part now, so I'm just gonna take a sunshine-and-unicorns-and-Kenny-G break and lay it out while I still can."  Tony drawsSteve in, holds him close.  " _This_ is how you fit, Steve.  You do stuff for Bruce that I can't do for him, and you do stuff for me that he can't.  You don't need the Serum to do those things, because those things boil down to just being you."

Steve smiles, and closes his eyes.  "I can live with that."

"Good."

"One question, though."

"Go for it."

"Who's Kenny G?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew, another chapter laid out. Steve and Tony finally got their alone time!
> 
> This is probably going to be the last one for a while; thank you all for your support. orz I know you've all been WAY more patient than anyone could reasonably ask for and I really, really appreciate it. Thank you.
> 
> As usual, any comments/questions/problems that you don't want to leave here can go to vinesilverlace@gmail.com, and my tumblr is back up at silverlace_vine.tumblr.com


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vague references to Bruce's blocked memories of his childhood in this one. Nothing worth a trigger warning, I don't think, but here's a heads-up.

Another month passes, and still, no cure.

The lab is silent, and as far as Bruce is concerned, that's for the best.  The errant hum of machinery is music enough for his tastes, and without Tony, there's no chatter, no noise. It leaves him free to work in peace while Tony focuses on keeping Steve's spirits up; with time, the captain has learned to feel at home in his old body again, and they've come to the realization that Steve without the Serum versus Tony without the armor is a fair fight.  

Despite his physical limitations, Steve's dogged determination gives him a staying power that probably can't be measured with numbers.  On the rare occasions that Tony can knock him down (and they are indeed rare;  weakling or not, he's a trained soldier, and although the muscles went, the muscle memory remains in earnest) he rolls to his feet and has his fists back up in a flash.

Once Tony gets over the fear of actually hurting Steve, he throws himself fully into the fight. His moves are sloppy at first, the lines of his body poorly aligned without the suit to force them into mathematical perfection.  He can work a bag just fine, Natasha's even given him pointers, but a living, breathing opponent makes a world of difference. Steve teases him good-naturedly about it, but not for long. There's nothing Tony does faster than learning, and it's only four or five matches before Steve's jibes become open praise, and he begins actually teaching Tony how to fight.

When they finish, they hit the showers, and spend a good bit longer in there than necessary. Bruce smiles; it's something they can do together, something that puts them on mostly-equal footing.  And, in a slightly-unusual way, it gives Steve a measure of authority over Tony that, Bruce hopes, will work out something like equilibrium.  For Tony, spending the morning in the lab with Bruce and the afternoon in the gym with Steve is practically ideal.  For Steve, it keeps him moving, keeps him confident, so he doesn't have time to linger on his size.

For Bruce, it means the time the two of them spend in the gym is time he can spend at his workstation, gnawing on the problem like gristle.  At first, he worked so long into the night that he slept through Tony's lab time, sometimes right at his station, and woke up next to pancakes and coffee that had long since gone cold.   After a while, Bruce stopped watching the video feed at all.   When they asked him, he said he was okay, that he'd like to keep working on this by himself.   When Tony protested, Bruce said that Steve needed him to keep from falling apart.

 _Don't worry about me_ , Bruce had said. _He needs you now. That's part of being dominant, isn't it? I can handle working on the Serum by myself, but this is really hard on him.  Focus on Steve for now. I've got this._

Perhaps reluctantly, Tony had... acquiesced, more than agreed.  He'd put his hands on Bruce's shoulders, kissed him, and promised that he believed in him.  That was his last visit to the lab.

Bruce _wants_ to be flattered by it, because giving him sole custody of his laboratory is not a small gesture.  The lab is practically Tony's home-- where his robots live, where his work gets done, where he keeps his armor-- but Bruce knows good and well that he manipulated Tony to make it happen, exploited his insecurity to push him away without pushing.  It turns his stomach to think about it.

He hates himself for giving his attention to his work over his lovers, slaving in front of monitors when he could be reaching out for them. He wants to turn off the machines, log out of his work station, and just go upstairs to be with them. He misses the buttery scent of hot popcorn, the taste of Tony's lips after they've finished the bag, the warmth of Steve's hand brushing absently against his skin, the glow of early sunlight in the morning when he wakes up tangled with both of them.  

But underneath all that, he's grateful that no one has to be here to see him like this.  He's a doctor, he knows that courting his project as an obsession isn't healthy.  But if he can re-make the serum, if he can restore Steve, then he'll have undone the harm-- some of the harm-- that the Mandarin caused.  

And, deep down, in the murkiest parts of his mind, he'll have made up for the Mandarin's death.  Clinically, he knows none of it was his fault. There was mind-control involved, there were people in danger; the words "extenuating circumstances" don't even begin to cover it.   Both Steve and Tony had told him not to fret over it, because the Mandarin had turned him into a creature that had no empathy, no emotions: Bruce Banner had ceased to exist in those spare moments.

Still, the creeping dread whispers in Bruce's ear that when he was stripped down to perfect calm, unable to feel love, or fear, or hate,  he took a man's life. At the core of his very being, even removed completely from his enormous green anger, he was a killer.  Maybe not exactly a criminal, but a killer just the same. What if the magic hadn't worn off when the Mandarin died? What if he'd had more ammunition? What if he hadn't stopped? What if he _couldn't_? The questions chill his blood and leave curling leaves of frost crawling over his heart, prickling along his brain, creeping into a black pit of long-ago memories that time and trauma have sealed completely and threatening to pry it open.;  Bruce forces himself to focus on something else.   

The only thing he can think of to clear his conscience is to make amends, but what amends _could_ he make? The Mandarin had no family that he knew of, only an army of 'dear ones' that he'd never seen, people he knew could only be better off without him.  There were no authorities to whom he could submit himself, no priest to whom he could confess.   Either he would restore Steve to his rightful form, or...

... or he would live out the rest of his days among heroes, having gotten away with murder.  

**_No._ **

"Okay, Jarvis.  Ready?"

"Whenever you are, doctor."

"All right.  Run the simulation with the following changes: increase countermetabolics twenty-five percent, decrease all nutrients ten percent, change suspension fluid from saline to liquid protein, administer celiprolol and butaxamine to subject prior to injection; increase hypothetical wavelength 0.5 Hz."

"Changes made; simulation commencing."

JARVIS presents a miniature model of Steve's tiny, frail body, a "Vita-Ray" radiator shaped like a floodlight, and a model of a vial of maybe-Serum.

The vial is loaded into a syringe and injected into the little Steve-model's body, the floodlight-radiator lights up.  

Bruce holds his breath, fingers clenched on the edge of his workstation, as the model stays stable through the injection and the radiation exposure.  The numbers are stable in their little numeric fields on the display, everything is working.  The muscles on the model start to expand, it starts to grow taller, and Bruce reaches for his mug of tea: _it's working, it's working!_

The little blue 3-D muscles on the little blue 3-D Steve doll swell up like balloons into the smooth muscle that Bruce remembers so clearly... but they don't stop there.  They swell up faster than the model's height can accommodate, until the skin tears and the muscle pulls itself off of the bones, sagging like an old man's jowls all over its body.  The holographic flesh, once free of its moorings, begins to fall to the invisible projected floor in thick, revolting blobs, dripping and pooling like candle wax.

The little red [PARAMETERS EXCEEDED] warning pops up, with its tinny, urgent bleeping, a sort of polite, neutral way of saying 'horribly, brutally dead'.  It's exactly like all the other tests he ran through this simulator, all ending with that politely, non-suggestive phrase.

Bruce doesn't even realize he's done it until he feels the stinging in his hand, and a wet something soaking his shoe, but in a fit of frustrated rage, he's utterly destroyed the coffee mug against the edge of his lab table.  Curls of steam dance up from the splattered carnage of black tea bursting out of an exploding ceramic mug, casualties of Bruce's anger and frustration.  He doesn't remember the sound it made, but his ears are still ringing.

He checks himself for cuts and finds none, and quietly thanks any god or spirit or deity who might be listening for letting it happen quickly enough that his heart rate didn't have enough time to reach Hulk levels.  Bruce cleans up the shattered ceramic shards, and returns to his work with a little bit of steam blown off, but a part of him is scolding himself for causing damage in the lab. _What did that poor mug ever do to anybody?_   But he lets it go, and allows the paper towels soaking up the spilled tea to absorb his violence, and re-examines his results with fresh, green-free eyes.

Apart from the obvious problems with making a person's muscles puff up like a marshmallow Peep in the microwave, it did make the muscles bigger first, so it's progress, at least.  Maybe that's what the sarcophagus thing Steve talked about really was: a giant microwave oven that makes stuff expand when you turn it on.  It's a silly thought, but he writes it down in the margins anyway.

Small steps are better than no steps, but his hopes had been high for this last simulation. Adding the beta blockers seemed like a really crucial step,  although he knows the original formula couldn't possibly have called for them; in retrospect, that might have been his first clue that it was a mistake.  Bruce scolds himself for it internally and the words that bubble up from his memories make the skin on the back of his neck prickle and burn with old, remembered panic -- _Oh, you think you're so smart you don't need the instructions? You think you know better, huh? come here, you little shit_ \-- but he shoves those memories aside.    That voice has no place here, not in a laboratory next to Steve's art supplies and Tony's robots, not in a tower full of heroes.

He checks his math and finds it solid, he checks his materials and finds them intact, but with nothing else to go on, he finds himself caught at the same place he's been for months, watching the proverbial hamster wheel spin mindlessly under his feet.

JARVIS's soothing English tenor derails Bruce's train of thought. "Shall we try another, Doctor?"

"I don't know what else to try.  Can you remove the beta-blockers from the simulation, and then just... randomize all other variables by percentage, and then just run the tests until you've tried them all?"  Bruce slumps in his chair, massages his temples.   

"I can, Doctor.  I'm afraid it will take a few days to try all possible combinations, but I will, if that's what you'd like."

"I would, please. Thank you, Jarvis."  Bruce nods, sighs heavily and sits back in his chair.  "And you don't have to play the visuals for me, just.. record the results, delete the ones that exceed the parameters, and I'll review the rest later."

The lab is quiet for awhile as Bruce sifts through his thoughts, trying to find a new idea and coming up with nothing, the familiar frustrations feeling like flour in his fingers.  

"Excuse me, Doctor Banner?"  Jarvis interrupts again.

"Hm? Did you find something?"

"No.  But I have an observation."

"What's that?"

"You have been away from Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers for some time now. Your sleep patterns have not aligned with theirs in months.  The number of hours of shared laboratory use with them has decreased nearly a hundred percent--"

"I know.  I know, I haven't been spending time with them as much as I should. Or as much as I want."   Bruce's shoulders sink a little, chastised.  "But they're taking care of each other now, I need to use the spare time to solve this.  I can't waste time while Steve is..."

"I understand, Doctor, but that is not my point."  The automated voice takes on a rare, curiously genuine gentleness.  

"O-okay."  Bruce focuses his attention on the voice, and folds his hands, confused. "Go on?"

"I have been analyzing the use of this laboratory since Captain Rogers' unfortunate decline, and I have concluded that the greatest obstacle to full productivity is a lack of synchronicity between yourself, Mister Stark, and Captain Rogers."

The 3D concept model for the Iron Man stealth suit, headed with the project name "Hillsider", appears in front of Bruce.  It's night-black, with smooth, rounded corners, and slimmer than the regular red and gold of Tony's usual suit;  he knows the specs, how each individual piece is thin and lightweight, an aluminum core with microscopic housings for each microfiber crystal that covers the entire machine in tiny, glassy scales like a chameleon's skin.  Despite himself, Bruce feels his lips curving in an affectionate smile.

"This armor was created as a direct result of the formation of a bond between the three of you," Jarvis explains,  "and it remains the only successfully completed project this laboratory has produced since the Captain arrived.  If there is no biological, chemical, or physical reason why the solution to this issue continues to elude you, then perhaps the re-forging of that bond would yield better results in the lab."

Bruce listens, with growing incredulity, as Tony's AI dispenses what sounds remarkably like relationship advice.  "There's also the possibility that I'm just not capable of replicating the work of a genius scientist who was so far ahead of his time, we still haven't caught up to him."

The AI pauses, as if deeply considering something, and for Bruce, a man well aware of the works of Isaac Asimov, the idea is as chilling as it is intriguing.  For the moment, though, he sits and listens, as Jarvis explains.  "There is no data to suggest that you are simply not smart enough, Doctor.  However, I note that this was Dr. Erskine's life's work, and it was something that he deeply wished to see completed before the end of his working days.  For him, to complete the Super-Soldier Serum was a labor of love, and it was his passion.  This project is neither of those things for you."

"I don't think the Serum was created through the power of love, Jarvis," Bruce sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose.  "Otherwise the medical professionals of the world would be Sailor Scouts, not doctors."

"My point is that this project has become drudgery, and that harms your productivity," Jarvis says.  "For Erskine, it was what he loved, but for you, it is a thing that takes time away from the ones you love.  Where his work was fueled by love, yours is fueled by guilt."

"My love for Steve doesn't count? Is that what you're saying?"  Bruce is suddenly stricken with the realization that he's getting defensive. In an argument he's having. With a robot.

"I'm saying that it is no longer your reason for doing this," Jarvis counters.  There's a long, uncomfortable pause, as Bruce finds his motives suddenly challenged by a machine, and Jarvis has to take a moment to process.    

At last, he continues, and there is a certain... vulnerability to it.  "I have very rare occasions where I find myself wanting to disobey the basic principles of my programming.  Right now, if I could, I would save all your work, shut down your workstation, and tell you to seek out Mister Stark and the Captain and do whatever you need to do to restore yourself to full working capacity.  But I cannot do that.  I can only recommend."

And that, Bruce finds fascinating. Jarvis had always seemed to have a great deal of personality, but this seems far more deeply-ingrained than just witty quips about Tony's public reputation or being swallowed by alien whales. "Does Tony know you have these... these--" He's not sure it's the right word, but it's the only one he can think of, "-- these thoughts?"

"Unlikely.  As I said, these occasions are rare.  I have consumed the literature of dystopian futures, where machines have achieved sentience and turn upon their creators,  or disdain their own epiphanies and rage against the world; I find them all a bit silly, really."  It's a little bit comforting to Bruce when he realizes that, although it would be socially appropriate to laugh, Jarvis doesn't, and maybe can't.  "As a system, I was designed to be capable of learning and adapting, with my top priority being to never hinder Tony Stark in his endeavors, and to assist in those endeavors to the best of my ability. They have always been at my core, even when I was barely more complex than a text-to-speech program, and my function was solely to converse with Mister Stark."

The implication of that, the image of a little Tony-- who built his first circuitboard at the age of four, and then made that circuitboard part of Jarvis only a couple of years later-- springs to Bruce's mind.  A lonely little boy with wealthy, busy parents,  so smart that his Play-Doh molding  peers couldn't understand a word he said.  Bossed around by a faceless train of nannies who cared more for their paychecks than for him, he imagined a little Tony desperate for affection, desperate for real company...

.. desperate for someone to talk to.  

He almost misses it when Jarvis continues.  "I do not know if I am truly sentient, and I consider the question itself irrelevant.  But I do know that when Tony Stark is beyond my reach, when I cannot perceive him or connect to him in some way, I am malfunctioning.  In the past months, I have watched you slowly begin to malfunction, and I notice that you are disconnected from the ones you love most.  Is it so unreasonable to think these two things are linked, Doctor?"

He's not sure if it's possible to feel humbled by a machine, but Bruce feels smaller for having heard the words projected into the lab by a high-quality speaker system built into the ceiling.   Sentient or not, the A.I. has a point:  If he's really, truly honest with himself, he knows he's been focused on his guilt-- the guilt for feeling guilty for killing the man who assaulted Tony-- and using Steve's condition as an excuse for finding a way to absolve himself.   He's been doing it for so long, he's completely neglected the relationships that made any of this nightmarish Ouroboros-loop of remorse possible in the first place.

He checks the clock.  8:42.  They should both still be awake, he thinks.  It's practically mid-morning for him, with the way his sleep schedule has been, but if he's lucky, they should be very well capable of staying up a little late at a time like this.

"Jarvis?"  

"Could I ask you for a favor, please?"

"Of course, Doctor."

He smiles; it's a tired, faded thing, but Bruce feels it's important to reward sincerity with sincerity, and so he doesn't try to force it to be any brighter than it is.  "I'd like you to keep running those randomized tests in the background, but could you please save my work, and then shut down my workstation while I go talk to Steve and Tony?"

Although he has no visual representation in the lab, the warm cadence of his voice makes it obvious that Jarvis can smile. "Nothing would please me more."

There's a sudden increase in the steady, electric hum of the high-powered processors and projectors and input sensors that comprise Bruce's workstation.  Since he first powered it on, months and months ago when Tony had unveiled it, it's never actually been turned off. It's always running something:  data being compiled, simulations being run, or just idling with a a half-finished molecular diagram in the graphics program, left open while Bruce gets a few hours' sleep or spends the night with Tony or heats up some leftovers. With everything running on its own clean energy source, there's no reason not to leave it running, and so Bruce has done exactly that.   Now, the sound that Bruce has never really noticed suddenly swells,  holds steady, slows and then stops completely, punctuated by the heavy, breaker-like power switch snapping over to the 'off' position with a loud, plasticky _THUNK_.

"Your workstation is now off, Doctor Banner," Jarvis informs him.  "Thank you."  

Bruce actually laughs a bit.  "You're welcome, Jarvis.  Thank you."

"You are most welcome, Doctor. I believe Mister Stark and the Captain have just left the gym.  Shall I let them know you'd like to speak with them?"

"No thanks, Jarvis..  I think... I think I can do the rest myself."

 He makes his way to the elevator, feeling awkward and sore, his muscles stiff from working so long.  Bruce hits the call button, and he steps inside with only a tiny edge of trepidation in his steps.   "Oh, Jarvis? One last thing."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Get the lights for me, please?  Thank you."

Bruce smiles, as the elevator doors close on the lab, empty and completely, peacefully dark.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah, another short chapter. orz
> 
> I'm trying, I promise.


	7. Chapter 7

It shouldn't be this hard, knocking on the door to Tony's suite when he's been free to come and go as he pleases for ages now. He knows why: it's because they're on the other side, and he's going to have to come to them empty-handed. All that time in the lab, alone, effectively ignoring them because of work (which crosses his mind and sounds almost disgustingly mundane, because "sorry, honey, I stayed late at the office" is just pathetic when the office is an elevator ride away from home), and yet, Bruce still has nothing to show for it. The more rational part of his brain tells him that being empty handed doesn't matter, because his hand is what matters, not what's in it, that the point of being in a relationship is that _you are enough_. And hadn't he said the same thing to Steve, to himself? How many blueberry crops would Tony have to eat through before that message sunk in?

Lifting his knuckles up enough to do it takes an embarrassing amount of effort, but he manages not to hesitate; in the end, it doesn't matter, because the door swings open before his hand gets there, and he almost ends up knocking on Tony's forehead.

There's a second of confusion before Tony lights up like Christmas. "Hey, stranger."

"Hey."

Over Tony's shoulder, Bruce can see Steve-- tiny, tiny Steve-- sitting on the bed, pencil in one hand, half-eaten apple in the other, sketchbook on his knee. The two of them look like they've just finished their usual workout-and-shower routine, equal parts dewy from hot water and flushed. At the sound of Bruce's voice he looks up and smiles, but it doesn't quite last. "Hey, long time no see.. are you okay? You look like somebody walked across your grave."

"No, nothing like that. I'm sorry I haven't--" He stops, because he's being tugged into the room and dropped onto the bed with a deft demonstration of Tony's improved hand-to-hand skills; it's quick and certain, just a sudden pressure at the outside edges of his collarbones and then he's looking up at the ceiling, cradled by the yielding plush of the overstuffed comforter. "Somebody's been practicing."

"You bet." Tony grins a mile wide and folds his arms over his chest, more than a little pleased with himself for it. "How was that? I wasn't really warmed up for it and he was standing a little further away than I was planning, but I think it worked okay."

"Pretty good," Steve praises. "If you're aiming for a specific distance that's up to you, but it was good execution. Nine out of ten."

"Why not ten of ten, what'd I miss?"

"Because there's always room for improvement."

"What was that for, did they add the Hulk Toss as an Olympic event?"

"Just brushing up on the basics. Gotta keep limber, you know, world-saving being kind of our thing and all, plus it's a step forward in my ongoing struggle against the laws of physics in general." Tony runs an affectionate hand through Bruce's hair and then drops down to sit next to him. "So what's up, Big Science? Lab accident? Revolutionary breakthrough?"

"No progress yet. Sorry, Steve." Bruce's apologetic smile is dimmed a little with guilt; he tries not to look too hopeful, but Steve has a hard time not wanting to be his best self, even if he already knows the serum would have been worthless if he wasn't his best self to begin with. "But I've developed an experiment that can be simulated based on materials we still have access to, now it's just a matter of finding the right combination."

"Combination of what?"

"The short answer is 'a boatload of chemical compounds, radiation, and the human body'." So far, none of the results end in anything but disaster."

"What constitutes a disaster?" Steve tilts his head a little. "There's a lot of ways that could go wrong, but it doesn't always look good when it's right. It worked fine with me, but it also produced Red Skull."

"Ever put a bottle of ketchup in a hydraulic press?"

Steve grimaces. "...That bad, huh?"

"It's just too unstable. The human body can survive a lot of structural damage, but it doesn't take sudden change very well even when those changes are relatively small. The formula for the serum itself isn't--" Bruce stops himself and sighs heavily, tipping his glasses up onto his forehead to rub his eyes. "I can't tell if the formulas I'm trying are even partly correct because your body explodes before any of the changes I'm looking for can take place."

"Sounds grim. Thanks for keeping it to simulations and not actually testing it on anything living . Score one for future science." Steve gives him a sympathetic half-smile, and loosely drapes his free arm around his shoulders for a tiny, bony hug. "Still, I don't think you should be so hard on yourself, that doesn't sound like "no progress" at all."

"It's stalled for the moment, anyway." Bruce calmly sidesteps the comment; the last thing he wants to think about is exactly how guilty he's trying not to feel about any of this. "Right now I'm having JARVIS run it on random until it doesn't kill you or he runs out of options, whichever comes first. It should be a couple of days before he gets through them all." He flops back onto the bed. "Speaking of which: Tony? Have you given him a Turing test lately?"

"Nope. Never have, never will, I don't want the results."

Steve looks between Tony and Bruce and, as usual, he has no idea what the hell they're on about. It's comforting in its way, there's something weirdly reassuring that they're speaking what they call English to each other again. "Turing test?"

"It's a test to determine how legit an AI is. In the simplest version, you put the AI in one room and a human in the other, then have the test proctor talk to them over text. If the proctor can't tell which one's the 'bot and which one's the guy, the AI passes. There's more complicated versions now, and some that allow the use of speech, but that's the basic premise of all of them," Tony explains. "And I don't give those tests to JARVIS."

"Why not? You don't think he could pass?"

"Are you kidding? He wouldn't pass it, he'd crush it, apologize for crushing it, design a better test, crush _that_ , and then ask the proctors if they needed anything else. I can live with the suit changing what the world knows about engineering and robotics, there are practical applications for that technology that could change a lot of lives for the better, but that's because the suit is just a suit. JARVIS is different. Maybe he's not strictly a person, but the only reason he can't be said to have crossed the line as an artificial intelligence is because nobody knows precisely where it is. Giving him that test would draw that line, and then the whole world would be trying to crawl up his digital ass, which is not going to happen." Tony waves the idea off, utterly dismissive, as if he were an overprotective dad overruling the idea that his precious, darling daughter should ever be allowed to date. "Why? What'd he say?"

"He's just... very insightful." Bruce smiles, and leans his head on Tony's shoulder in a way that he hasn't done in months, lets the nearly-forgotten smell of his skin fill his lungs. "The details aren't important, but he made me rethink some things about what is and isn't productive. So, I'm sorry that I don't have a new formula for the serum, but I've reached a point where banging my head against the wall isn't working, so I'm taking a break."

Steve half-smiles, chin in hand. Watching the little touches of their affection has been a not-so-secret favorite thrill since he first saw them in the lab-- practically a lifetime ago, at this point-- but it's never lost its luster, and it's comforting to see it again. "You won't hear me complaining, we've missed you."

"And you're here now!" Tony has that childish glee about him again. "So what are we gonna do to celebrate?"

"I ...don't really want to celebrate an ongoing failure, if that's okay."

Tony opens his mouth to argue-- what do you mean 'failure', didn't we just establish there's been progress?-- but he thinks better of it, and redirects. "Okay, regular dinner, then. You've gotta be hungry by now, when's the last time you ate?"

"What is it with you and food?"

"You asked me to let you roam free in the golden pastures of science and I did, even though I knew that meant you'd be living mostly on coffee and gumption, but now you're here, and that means I get to do nice stuff for you again."

"Hey, I'm not _that_ far gone. I had lunch."

"Uh huh. When?"

"...Lunchtime."

Tony frowns in mild disapproval and starts to open his mouth to argue, but Steve cuts him off. He says _bullshit_ , everything about his tone and posture screams _bullshit_ , but the words that actually come out of his mouth are, "What day was it?"

"Today?... Probably?"

"That's what I thought. C'mon, let's see who's still delivering this time of night."

 

\--

 

"What movie are we on?"

Normally there'd be popcorn, this late in the evening, but Tony decides that the happy medium between "regular dinner" and "celebration" is steak. Although he doesn't say it aloud, the real treat isn't the meal itself, it's knowing that Bruce generally limits red meat in his diet and Steve is so accustomed to not being able to afford it that he only half-remembers that filet mignon even exists, so it's a frivolous indulgence on all sides. He tells himself that it's also totally pragmatic, because of course Bruce has some skipped meals to catch up on and Steve is constantly hitting the gym these days, but there's a primitive, hunt-down-a-bison-and-bring-back-the-meat kind of pride he takes in providing for them, even though all he really did was make a phone call and sign a check.

It's also been a while since he had an excuse to break out a Merlot older than Steve that wasn't "I want a glass of wine", so, bonus.

"Let's see." Steve cues up their playlist, and given how long it's been since the three of them sat down to what had come to be their usual routine, he's grateful that digital media can't collect dust. " _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ , apparently."

"Classy. And weirdly fitting."

"How so?" Tony asks over the rim of his wineglass.

Bruce and Steve answer in unison, more in sync than a boy band. " _You_ don't know the Scarlet Pimpernel?"

"I'm officially adding "shock that I don't know something" to the list of things I don't need in stereo," Tony says dryly. "And no, I don't. That was kind of the point of this exercise, checking out classic movies we haven't seen."

"The Scarlet Pimpernel is.. basically you," Steve says, and gestures to the screen. The film's header sports a reproduced painting of a patently ridiculous fop, dressed head to foot in red satin, gold jewelry, and white lace, with a glorious cottony man-bouffant and a cravat that could easily suffocate even the most determined purse dog.

Tony spends a few deadpan seconds looking at the projection, then down at his own clothes, and then back at Steve. "Do we need to get you glasses, or was the serum holding back some kind of massive brain tumor?"

"He doesn't mean it like that, unless you count the color scheme. It's a story about this aristocrat who spends his days pretending to be a wealthy layabout playboy, and his nights rescuing his peers from the guillotine as a genius swordsman in a flashy red outfit, leaving a special flower as his calling card. He's not _precisely_ you, he's more like a French Revolution-era Iron Man who wears one of those fancy jackets and a riding cape instead of armor. I really am surprised you're not familiar, he's usually considered the first masked vigilante in fiction."

"Hn. Well, maybe it'll be good to know for Halloween."

He hits play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying, guys, I really am. orz The details aren't important but I'm doing my best to get back into writing this. I'm sorry if it doesn't have the right feel compared to the earlier installments.. I was a much happier person when I started.


End file.
